Artillery Casemate R-H-S 79 - Orlicke mountains, Czech Republic - Military Installations on Waymarking.com

The Artillery fortification Hanicka consists of six forts - one blockhouse of entry, three infantry forts, one artillery fort and one fort for an artillery turret.

The plan of upper floor of the infantry blockhouse R-H-S 79

The artillery casemate R-H-S 79 (code name "Na mýtine") was intended to be the best armed object of Hanicka fortification complex, and to provide fire support for the line of infantry blockhouses between Panské pole and Ceské Petrovice, as well as to shield the fortress Adam from the west. Since it was a massive construction, the object was divided by a dilatation joint into two parts that were concreted separately. The concreting of the first part was carried out from 5 to 9 October 1937, the second part from 15 to 22 November 1937. With its cubic capacity of 5 598 m3, it has become not only the biggest object of the fortress Hanicka, but also the most massive casemate of the Czechoslovak fortification system.
Like the other objects of the fortress Hanicka, the casemate S-79 was build within the highest resistance class (the ceiling and endangered walls 350 cm, other walls 150 cm). The upper floor of the object was intended to hide three-canon battery of 10 cm howitzers Mk. 38 with the fire range of 11.9 km. The howitzers would have had the rate of fire 12 - 20 rounds per minute and been placed in the massive crucible steel embrasures protected by a movable shield. Their fire would have been directed from the observation bell of the object S-76. However the plant Škoda Plzen did not manage to put into operation the complete assembly-line production of howitzers, and thus the howitzers had to be replaced by obsolete, yet reliable 7.5 cm mountain howitzers Mk. 15. Thanks to their large structure they could not be placed into the embraces, and thus the firing posts had to be constructed in the forest, in the distance of about 400 metres from the actual object.
The commander of the battery was appointed captain of artillery Josef škodík, the crew would have counted 87 soldiers. The defence of the immediate surroundings was assured by four light machine guns. Two of them were placed in armour bells; further two machine guns were placed in embraces under the concrete. On the upper floor, except for the guns, there was also space for emergency ammunition stores and water tanks. On the lower floor, there were three rooms for spent cartridges, post for the commander, rooms for the weapons attendance crew in case of emergency, gas protection system, and sanitary facilities. The emergency exit hatch was closed with iron bars and thick-walled gastight door, and led to the protection ditch aimed to make it difficult for the enemy to reach the howitzer embrasures. The connection between both floors and the ammunition stores in the underground (34 m deep) was assured with two lift cages with the load capacity of 2 500 kg. The crew used the stairs. German testing during the occupation damaged the rear walls of the casemate and the spherical cup of the right bell, where an explosive charge was detonated. In 1958, workers of the co-operative KovoSrot destroyed the left armoured bell. During the operation "Project Kahan" the object S-79 played an important role - it was intended to become a place of the main suction of the air for the central filtering room. One of the howitzer embrasures was removed and the newly emerged space was made a new entrance to the object protected by gastight pressure door. A new lift was installed in the object, and the damaged walls were planned to be repaired. There were also plans to provide the object with insulation and to earth it. However, there was not enough time to realize these plans to their full extent. The object was fenced, but the installation of the electric inner fence remained unrealized.

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